Daily AncestorOrgan grinder
An organ grinder was a street musician who played a barrel organ by turning a crank, often with a trained monkey collecting coins.
The street organ was a portable barrel organ: a pinned cylinder worked the notes as the handle turned. Many were built by Italian makers, and in New York City the great influx of Italian immigrants meant that by 1880 nearly one in 20 Italian men in certain areas were organ grinders.
In New York, where monkeys were commonly used, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia banned the instruments from the streets in 1935, and hundreds of organs were destroyed.
As seen in a recordOccupation and industry columns of the 1910 to 1930 census
Giuseppe Scarnecchia, 51, Organ grinder, Street
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Daily Ancestor. "Organ grinder." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/organ-grinder. Last checked 2026-10-12.